ADVANCE  SHEETS 


UNITED  STATES  BUREAU  OF  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  FROM  THE  REPORT  OF  THE  COMMISSIONER  OF  EDUCATION 

For  1907 


Chapter  XII 


Charles  Duncan  Mclver  and  His  Edu- 
cational Services,  1886-1906 


By  Charles  L.  Coon 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT    PRINTING    OFFICE 

1908 


CHAPTER  XII. 

CHARLES  DUNCAN  McIVER  AND  HIS  EDUCATIONAL 
SERVICES,  1886-1906. 

By  Charles  L.  Coon, 

North  Carolina  Department  of  Public  Education. 

The  glory  of  the  struggle  to  which  southern  educators  are  called  and  the  prospect  of  certain  victory 
is  such  exhilarating  inspiration  that  I  feel  sorry  for  those  in  other  sections  who  have  not  the  oppor- 
tunity, and  for  those  in  our  own  section  who  lack  inclination  or  the  resolution,  to  participate  in  the 
struggle.     (Charles  Duncan  Mclver.) 

HIS    EDUCATIONAL    SERVICES. 

Here  was  a  man  of  transcendent  ability  to  move  common  men  to 
believe  in  the  saving  efficacy  of  education  as  the  most  vitally  civiliz- 
ing force  in  our  national  fife.  Here  was  a  man  of  large  vision  and 
constructive  ideals  who  devoted  all  his  time  to  unselfish  service  for 
his  fellows.  Here  was  a  man  whose  sympathy  and  catholic  spirit  were 
broad  enough  to  include  all  mankind.  Here  was  an  elemental  man,  a 
product  of  this  generation  of  southern  life  rediscovering  and  re-form- 
ing itself,  whose  consuming  ambition  was  to  strive  "for  the  perfection 
of  civilization  and  the  ennobling  of  democracy." 

I.    NORTH    CAROLINA    EDUCATIONAL   CONDITIONS   IN    1886. 

Twenty  years  ago  North  Carolina  was  spending  annually  for  public 
elementary  schools,  rural  and  city,  $771,719  for  570,000  children. 
This  small  sum  was  divided  among  more  than  6,600  different  schools 
and  6,700  teachers.  The  physical  equipment  of  these  schools,  includ- 
ing grounds  and  furniture  and  buildings,  was  somewhat  less  in  value 
than  $700,000.  The  average  length  of  the  school  term  was  only  60 
days  out  of  365,  and  the  teachers  were  paid  annually  hardly  $80  each. 
At  least  two-thirds  of  these  elementary  teachers  were  men.  The  total 
amount  paid  for  the  supervision  of  all  these  schools,  including  the  nine 
towns  which  then  had  separate  systems  of  their  own,  was  a  little  less 
than  $30,000  for  the  year;  only  about  $19,000  of  this  amount  was 
paid  the  96  county  superintendents  for  their  services.  At  that  time 
not  a  single  county  superintendent  devoted  all  his  time  to  school 
supervision  on  account  of  the  meager  salary  paid,  while  less  than  one- 
fourth  of  all  the  teachers  spent  longer  than  three  months  out  of  each 

year  in  the  school  room. 

329 


330  EDUCATION    REPORT,   1907. 

Considerably  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  white  population  in  1886 
10  years  of  age  and  over  was  illiterate,  while  at  least  70  per  cent  of 
the  colored  population  of  the  same  age  was  illiterate.  There  were 
23,000  more  white  female  illiterates  than  white  male  illiterates. 

Some  regarded  the  public  schools  as  a  public  charity.  Some  op- 
posed them  on  the  ground  that  they  were  purely  secular  and  did  not 
teach  morality.  Some  declared  that  the  public  schools  were  not 
worthy  of  patronage.  Still  others  opposed  the  whole  idea  of  public 
education  because  the  negro  shared  in  the  division  of  the  public  funds. 
In  a  word,  the  public  schools  were  satisfactory  to  no  class  of  people. 
The  leading  churches  were  then  and  later  actively  opposed  to  State 
support  of  lugher  education,  because  they  held  that  the  State,  by  such 
support,  would  enter  into  unfair  competition  with  the  sectarian  col- 
leges already  established. 

The  University  of  North  Carolina,  partially  and  meagerly  aided  by 
the  State,  had  been  in  existence  for  a  century,  but  its  advantages 
were  not  open  to  white  women.  There  was  no  State-supported  insti- 
tution or  endowed  college  in  which  a  white  woman  could  obtain 
higher  education.  The  cost  of  higher  education  for  a  white  woman 
at  the  then  existing  women's  colleges  ranged  from  $250  to  $450  a 
year,  twice  the  cost  of  education  for  a  man  at  the  State  university 
and  the  endowed  denominational  colleges.  And  there  was  no  State 
normal  school  of  any  kind  for  training  white  teachers,  only  an  imper- 
fect and  unsatisfactory  system  of  so-called  summer  normals  of  four 
weeks'  duration. 

What  public  school  system  there  was  in  1886  had  been  developed 
since  1870,  while  the  State  was  yet  suffering  from  the  grinding  pov- 
erty and  social  disorganization  occasioned  by  the  civil  war  and  recon- 
struction. The  battle  cry  of  the  dominant  political  party  during 
these  years  was  "white  supremacy  and  low  taxes."  There  were  no 
public  men  of  conspicuous  ability  who  advocated  increasing  school 
taxes  as  the  only  means  of  increasing  the  efficiency  of  all  the  schools 
of  all  the  people.  In  1881  a  law  which  permitted  school  districts 
to  levy  local  school  taxes  by  each  race  on  its  own  property  for 
the  benefit  of  its  own  schools  was  passed.  But  even  this  measure, 
enacted  to  allay  the  supposed  race  prejudice  of  the  whites  against 
increasing  taxes  for  negro  schools,  did  not  meet  with  great  popular 
favor,  for  when  the  law  was  declared  unconstitutional  by  the  North 
Carolina  supreme  court  in  1886,  the  white  people  of  less  than  a  score 
of  towns  and  country  districts  had  availed  themselves  of  its  provisions. 

Such,  in  brief,  were  educational  conditions  in  North  Carolina  which 
produced  Charles  D.  Mclver  and  that  group  of  educational  leaders 
and  statesmen  of  his  time.  Their  knowledge  of  these  conditions  im- 
pelled them  to  do  the  most  unselfish  and  important  public  service 
undertaken  during  their  generation.     The  story  of  their  work  for 


CHARLES    DUXOAX    m'iVKH.  33  L 

North  Carolina  in  broadening  A'ision,  for  the  moral  and  intellectual 
uplift  of  the  people,  and  for  engendering  noble  aspirations  for  the 
future  can  not  be  told  here,  nor  can  the  story  of  their  faith  and  cour- 
age in  proclaiming  the  education  of  all  the  people  as  the  only  means 
of  spiritual  and  economic  freedom  be  full}'  emphasized.  A  mere  out- 
line of  their  work  shall  suffice. 

II.    NORTH    CAROLINA    EDUCATIONAL    CONDITIONS    IN    1905. 

Xorth  Carolina  is  now  spending  $1 ,955,776  on  her  elementary  schools, 
$1,426,552  on  her  rural  schools,  and  $529,224  on  her  town  and  city 
schools.  This  is  $1,184,057  more  than  was  spent  for  elementary 
schools  twenty  years  ago.  Instead  of  6,600  schools  and  6,700  teachers 
in  1S86,  Xorth  Carolina  now  has  8,193  schools  and  9,687  teachers. 
Instead  of  $700,000  worth  of  school  property,  she  now  has  school  prop- 
erty valued  at  $3,182,919.  Each  teacher  is  now  employed  on  an 
average  of  88  days  out  of  365  instead  of  60,  and  receives  annually 
$136.29  instead  of  $80.  The  97  county  superintendents  now  receive 
$53,024  instead  of  $19,000,  and  many  of  them  are  now  able  to  devote 
all  their  time  to  the  schools.  The  whole  amount  spent  for  supervision 
is  now  $110,016  instead  of  $30,000.  Local  taxes  are  now  levied  in  63 
towns  and  cities  instead  of  9,  while  354  country  districts  levy  special 
local  school  taxes.  There  were  no  country  local  tax  districts  in  1886. 
The  general  State  school  tax  is  now  18  cents  on  each  $100  valuation 
of  property  instead  of  12^  cents.  And  every  leader  of  the  people,  in 
whatever  walk  of  life,  is  sincerely  sorry  these  figures  are  not  man}* 
times  larger  and  the  opportunity  our  schools  afford  for  the  training 
of  our  700,000  children  many  times  greater. 

The  State  University  now  receives  considerably  more  than  twice  the 
State  aid  it  received  twenty  years  ago.  In  addition,  the  State  now 
largely  supports  an  agricultural  anil  mechanical  college  for  each  race, 
a  State  normal  and  industrial  college  for  white  women,  two  small  white 
normal  schools  for  both  sexes,  and  three  colored  normal  schools  for 
both  sexes,  all  at  an  annual  cost  of  $131,000.  Church  opposition  to 
higher  education  has  passed  away,  andboth  political  parties  nowpledge 
themselves  to  the  most  liberal  educational  policy.  A  public  man  who 
opposes  raising  more  money  for  schools  is  an  exception.  More  is  now 
said  during  the  political  campaigns  in  Xorth  Carolina  about  education 
than  about  all  other  public  questions  combined.  There  is  now  an 
organization  of  women  in  nearly  every  county  whose  aim  it  is  to 
beautify  country  school  houses  and  grounds.  There  are  now  libraries 
of  good  books  in  more  than  1,500  country  schools,  with  a  healthy 
public  sentiment  at  work  to  make  it  impossible  for  any  school  to  be 
much  longer  without  such  a  prime  necessity.  And  finally,  the  illit- 
eracy figures  of  twenty  years  ago  have  been  reduced  to  at  least  half 

39S47— ed  1907— vol  1 L'2 


332  EDUCATION   REPORT,  1907. 

what  tliey  were  then,  while  there  are  well-defined  movements  looking 
to  compulsory  school  attendance  and  to  the  strengthening  and  better 
enforcement  of  the  present  child-labor  laws. 

Thus  the  record  stands  when  put  into  cold  statistics.  But  the  in- 
fluence of  the  revolution  in  public  sentiment  brought  about  by  the 
educational  statesmanship  which  this  story  reveals  has  been  felt 
throughout  the  South.  The  commanding,  compelling  leader  who 
should  be  seen  in  every  line  of  this  inspiring  page  in  the  progress  of 
his  State  from  the  bondage  of  individualism  toward  democracy  is 
Charles  Duncan  Mclver,  founder  of  the  North  Carolina  State  Normal 
and  Industrial  College  and  the  most  effective  advocate  of  universal 
education  since  Horace  Mann. 

III.    HOW    THE    FIRST   BATTLE    WAS    VOX. 

Charles  D.  Mclver  began  his  life  work  as  a  teacher  soon  after  his 
graduation  from  the  State  University  in  1881.  By  188G  he  had  be- 
come convinced  that  "the  supreme  question  in  civilization  is  educa- 
tion," and  that  "the  cheapest,  easiest,  and  surest  road  to  universal 
education  is  to  educate  those  who  are  to  be  the  mothers  and  teachers 
of  future  generations."  Mclver  did  not  discover  these  two  funda- 
mental truths;  they  discovered  him  to  himself,  and  they  made  for  liim 
his  message  to  the  people  he  loved.  For  several  generations  Murphey, 
Caldwell,  Wiley,  and  others  had  preached  to  North  Carolinians  the 
doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  education.  Pestalozzi  and  other  educa- 
tional reformers  had  emphasized  the  education  of  women  as  the 
teachers  of  the  race.  But  no  one  had  as  yet  been  able  to  compel 
North  Carolina  to  heed  the  message  that  was  to  spell  the  larger  free- 
dom of  all  its  people. 

It  was  Doctor  Mclver's  unique  distinction  to  carry  to  the  people  of 
his  State  three  fundamental  principles  of  educational  statesmanship 
and  to  win  for  them  a  favorable  popular  verdict.  These  principles 
were  as  follows :  "The  teachers  of  children  must  have  special  training; 
the  State  must  aid  the  higher  education  of  women  as  well  as  men; 
the  most  necessary  and  expensive  thing  in  the  world,  except  igno- 
rance, is  education,"  and  therefore  the  taxes  for  public  education  must 
be  increased.  These  fundamental  democratic  principles  he  accepted 
as  the  very  essence  of  educational  truth,  and  he  never  once  doubted 
that  all  men  would  accept  them  as  he  did  if  only  they  were  rightly 
presented. 

It  took  five  years  of  agitation — from  1S86  to  1891 — to  get  a  favor- 
able verdict  from  the  people  on  the  propositions  involving  the  train- 
ing of  teachers  and  State  aid  for  the  higher  education  of  women.  The 
establishment  in  1891  of  the  State  Normal  and  Industrial  College 
meant  nothing  less  than  that  the  people  of  North  Carolina  had  been 
convinced  that  teachers  ought  to  be  trained  for  their  responsible  work 


CHARLES   DUNCAN    M'lVER.  333 

and  that  the  State  ought  to  aid  the  higher  education  of  women.  Dur- 
ing these  years  of  agitation  Doctor  Mclver  spoke  often  on  "Female 
education/'  "The  duty  of  the  people  to  their  schools,"  "The  teacher 
and  the  people,"  and  "Taxation  for  schools,"  and  held  county  insti- 
tutes in  all  parts  of  the  State.  The  North  Carolina  Teachers'  Assembly 
and  the  late  State  Superintendent  Finger  rendered  valuable  assistance. 
But  the  most  effective  means  used  to  secure  the  establishment  of  the 
State  Normal  College  was  the  educational  campaign  which  Doctor 
Mclver  and  Dr.  Edwin  A.  Alderman  conducted  in  connection  with 
their  county  institutes  from  June,  1889,  to  June,  1892.  These  insti- 
tutes were  held  in  nearly  all  the  96  counties.  They  lasted  five  days 
each.  The  final  day  was  devoted  to  educational  campaign  speaking. 
An  effort  was  made  to  have  all  the  school  officers  and  as  many  other 
citizens  as  possible  attend  these  meetings  on  the  final  day  of  the  in- 
stitute. Never  before  had  the  people  heard  the  subject  of  education 
so  ably  and  attractively  presented  as  it  was  presented  by  these  two 
incomparable  educational  advocates.  The  people  heard  not  flattery 
nor  the  glorification  of  a  dead  past.  Instead  they  heard  of  the  shame 
and  blighting  effects  of  illiteracy;  they  heard  a  new  doctrine  of  the 
spiritual  and  economic  meaning  of  education;  they  heard  how  neces- 
sary it  was  that  the  teachers  of  little  children  have  the  best  training 
for. the  most  important  work  of  civilization;  they  heard  how  for  a 
century  the  State  had  been  aiding  men  to  secure  the  blessings  of 
higher  education  and  denying  the  same  privilege  to  women;  and  they 
heard  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  men  plead  that  taxes  be  raised 
instead  of  lowered.  This  campaign  marked  a  new  epoch  in  North 
Carolina  history,  for  it  was  a  campaign  without  appeal  to  race  preju- 
dice, without  appeal  to  dead  issues;  it  was  a  campaign  free  from  the 
quarrel  words  of  the  past;  it  was  an  appeal  for  broader  vision.  It 
was  a  campaign  the  only  weapons  of  whose  warfare  were  persuasion 
and  love;  it  was  a  campaign  in  which  the  only  possible  reward  of 
those  who  waged  it  was  the  consciousness  of  an  unselfish  civic  service 
performed  primarily  in  the  interest  of  little  children.  The  appeal  to 
the  people  was  successful;  the  State  Normal  College  was  established; 
and  the  man  who  had  done  most  to  mold  public  sentiment  in  its 
favor,  Charles  D.  Mclver,  was  made  its  first  president. 

IV.  LEADER  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  EDUCATIONAL  CAMPAIGN. 

The  story  of  the  founding  and  the  growth  of  this  college  is  the  story 
of  the  growth  of  public  educational  sentiment  in  North  Carolina  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty  years.  The  unique  popular  educational  cam- 
paign which  established  the  college  and  which  revolutionized  public 
thinking  on  the  subject  of  education  has  continued  to  this  da}-.  The 
college,  under  the  guidance  of  its  president,  has  ever  been  the  most 
vitally  helpful  and  active  educational  force,  standing  for  democratic 


384  EDUCATION    REPORT,    19OT. 

ideals  of  culture  ami  civic  service.  It  has  constantly  disseminated 
educational  enthusiasm,  and  has  been  the  means  of  enlarging  more 
and  more  the  numbers  of  those  whose  ideal  is  to  stand  for  larger  edu- 
cational opportunity  for  all  the  people. 

As  "the  cit}T  set  on  a  hill  can  not  be  hid,"  so  the  altruistic  spirit  of 
the  educational  work  in  North  Carolina  soon  attracted  wide  attention 
in  the  South  and  gave  courage  to  many  other  southern  men  and 
women  to  undertake  similar  tasks.  By  1900  kindred  spirits  through- 
out the  North  recognized  the  national  value  of  the  educational  work 
being  done  in  the  South  b}-  many  educational  leaders  and  statesmen. 
It  did  not  take  long  to  formulate  cooperative  plans.  At  Winston- 
Salem  in  April,  1901,  there  was  a  conference  of  the  ten  educational 
workers  and  their  friends.  Doctor  Mclver  suggested  a  platform  of 
cooperative  principles.  The  platform  was  a  call  for  an  educational 
campaign.  The  Southern  Education  Board  to  conduct  the  campaign 
was  formed.  The  man  who  had  been  waging  educational  warfare  in 
North  Carolina  for  fifteen  years  was  made  the  chairman  of  the  cam- 
paign committee  of  the  board.  Then  was  actively  begun  throughout 
the  South  a  face-to-face  discussion  which  aimed  to  reach  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  men  and  persuade  them  to  provide  larger  educa- 
tional opportunities  for  their  children.  And  again  the  weapons  of 
battle  are  persuasion  and  love.  The  appeal  to  men  is  for  broader 
vision  and  higher  taxes;  their  reward,  economic  and  spiritual  free- 
dom for  their  children.  The  whole  meaning  of  this  wonderful  move- 
ment can  not  be  expressed  in  more  epigrammatic  form  than  in  the 
following  words  of  its  master  spirit,  Doctor  Mclver:  "I  know  that 
the  angels  must  rejoice  over  one  civic  sinner  who  repents  of  his  selfish- 
ness and  hatred  of  taxes  and  becomes  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of 
universal  education  by  taxation." 

This  campaign  has  taught  many  men,  North  and  South,  to  lay 
aside  some  outworn  prejudices;  it  has  given  new  hope  and  inspiration 
to  those  statesmen  of  the  South  who  are  convinced  that  education  of 
the  right' kind  is  the  only  means  of  spiritual  and  economic  freedom; 
it  has  been  a  potent  influence  in  creating  patriotic  sentiment;  and, 
finally,  it  has  brought  hope  and  courage  to  many  a  humble  teacher 
struggling  to  tempt  the  young  fledgelings  to  leave  the  nest  of  illiteracy 
for  the  purer  air  of  intellectual  freedom. 

EDUCATIONAL    CREED. 

No  appreciation  of  Mdver's  work  would  be  complete  without  a 
glimpse  at  the  soul  of  the  man  as  he  stood  before  the  people.  He  had 
an  inexhaustible  fund  of  illustration,  anecdote,  and  humor.  But  he 
impressed  no  one  as  a  mere  "funny  man;"  he  was  too  intensely  in 
earnest.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  this  man  declaring,  with  all  the  ear- 
nestness of  a  Peter  the  Hermit  and  with  wonderful  wealth  of  illustra- 


CHARLES    DUNCAN    M   IYER.  335 

tion:  "In  a  civilized  country  the  value  of  land  and  land  products  is 
not  so  great  as  the  value  of  mind  and  mind  products;  ideas  are  worth 
more  than  acres,  and  the  possessors  of  ideas  will  always  hold  in  finan- 
cial bondage  those  whose  chief  possession  is  acres  of  land;"  and  you 
will  perhaps  be  able  to  understand  his  power  to  convince  men  that 
"the  supreme  question  in  civilization  is  education."  Hear  him  dis- 
cuss The  Meaning  of  Education  in  a  Democracy: 

Education  is  simply  civilization's  effort  to  propagate  and  perpetuate  its  life  and  its 
progress. 

The  generations  of  men  are  but  relays  in  civilization's  march  on  its  journey  from 
savagery  to  the  millennium. 

Each  generation  owes  it  to  the  past  and  to  the  future  that  no  previous  worthy  attain- 
ment or  achievement,  whether  of  thought  or  deed  or  vision,  shall  be  lost. 

The  more  we  can  induce  a  man  to  do  for  himself  for  his  better  training  the  more  will 
he  be  able  to  do  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  others. 

The  child  is  the  pearl  of  great  price  for  whom  we  can  afford  to  sell  all  that  we  have 
and  in  Avhom  we  can  afford  to  invest  it. 

Education  is  not  a  charity.  A  boy  or  a  girl  can  not  be  pauperized  by  giving  him  or 
her  a  chance  to  drudge  for  a  period  of  lifteen  years  at  the  hardest  labor  ever  done. 

Let  us  teach  honestly  and  boldly  that  education  is  not  only  the  best  thing  in  our 
civilization  for  which  public  money  can  be  used,  but  that  with  the  exception  of  igno- 
rance it  is  also  the  most  expensive. 

Men  now  seek  education,  not  that  they  may  become  leaders  in  the  State  and  in  the 
church,  but,  first  of  all,  that  they  may  become  strong  men;  so  that  to-day  seeing  a 
man  at  college  is  no  indication  that  he  expects  to  be  a  preacher  or  a  politician. 

Universal  education  means  that  every  youth  should  have  an  opportunity  to  meas- 
ure his  mental  powers  in  comparison  with  the  mental  powers  of  his  fellow's,  and  that 
lie  should  thus  be  aided  in  discovering  the  work  for  which  he  is  best  fitted,  and  then 
that  he  should  have  special  training  for  that  work. 

Before  the  war  no  man  was  allowed  to  educate  a  slave,  because  they  said  it  ruined 
him  and  rendered  him  unfit  for  work.  Education  is  a  hindrance  to  slavery,  and 
ignorance  a  necessity  to  it. 

Education  can  not  be  given  to  anyone.  It  can  not  be  bought  and  sold.  It  is  as 
personal  as  religion.  Each  one  must  work  out  his  own  mental  and  spiritual  salvation. 
This  is  the  fact  that  makes  democracy  possible.     It  is  the  salt  that  saves  the  world. 

We  and  our  fathers  have  too  often  thought  of  a  State  as  a  piece  of  land  with  mineral 
resources,  forests,  water  courses,  and  certain  climatic  conditions.  The  future  will 
recognize  that  people — not  trees  and  rocks  and  rivers  and  imaginary  boundary  lines — 
make  a  State,  and  that  the  State  is  great,  intelligent,  wealthy,  and  powerful,  or  is 
small,  ignorant,  poverty  stricken,  and  weak,  just  in  proportion  as  its  people  are  edu- 
cated or  as  they  are  untrained  and  raw,  like  the  natural  material  around  them. 

TAXATION    FOR    SCHOOLS. 

And  this  is  how  he  made  men  see  that  higher  taxation  for  schools 
is  a  necessity: 

I  know  that  the  angels  must  rejoice  over  one  civic  sinner  who  repents  of  his  selfish- 
ness and  hatred  of  taxes  and  becomes  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  universal  education 
by  taxation. 

Money  is  worth  nothing  without  ideas  and  ideals,  and  yet  ideas  and  ideals  can 
make  little  headway  in  promoting  civilization  without  the  sympathy  and  cooperation 
of  wealth  and  wealth  producers. 

The  aversion  to  taxation  is  due  to  ignorance  of  the  fact  that- taxation  is  simply  an 
exchange  of  a  little  money  for  something  better — civilized  government.  The  savage 
alone  is  exempt  from  taxation. 


336  EDUCATION    REPORT,  1901. 

The  majority  of  the  schools  of  the  South  need  and  need  badly:  Better  houses  and 
equipment,  longer  terms,  stronger  teachers,  and  more  effective  supervision.  Reduc- 
ing these  needs  to  a  common  denominator,  we  have  four  distinct  calls  for  more  money. 
Not  only  is  it  a  call  for  more  now — tine  time — but  for  all  time. 

We  have  heard  in  ancient  days  that  it  is  robbery  to  tax  Brown's  property  to  educate 
Jones's  children.  In  the  future  no  one  will  question  the  right  of  the  State  to  tax  the 
property  of  Brown  and  Jones  to  develop  the  State  through  its  children. 

It  has  been  too  common  a  political  teaching  that  the  best  government  is  that  which 
levies  the  smallest  taxes.  The  future  will  modify  that  doctrine  and  teach  that  liberal 
taxation,  fairly  levied  and  properly  applied,  is  the  chief  mark  of  a  civilized  people. 
The  savage  pays  no  tax. 

Can  you  make  Georgia  a  greater  State  without  making  Atlanta  greater,  stronger,  and 
freer?  Is  it  not  the  duty  of  Atlanta  and  of  every  other  city  and  community  in  the 
Southern  States  which  has  found  it  wise  and  profitable  to  levy  a  special  local  tax  to 
educate  its  children  to  use  every  possible  legitimate  means  to  persuade  every  other 
community  in  the  South,  large  and  small,  to  do  the  same  thing? 

EDVCATIOX    OF    WOMEX. 

Doctor  Mclver  believed  that  universal  education  was  somehow  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  proper  education  of  women.  He  was 
never  more  irresistible  than  when  he  declared: 

The  cheapest,  easiest,  and  surest  road  to  universal  education  is  to  educate  those  who 
are  to  be  the  mothers  and  teachers  of  future  generations. 

An  educated  man  may  be  the  father  of  illiterate  children,  but  the  children  of  edu- 
cated women  are  never  illiterate. 

The  proper  training  of  women  is  the  strategic  point  in  the  education  of  the  race. 

Men  have  had  the  exclusive  management  of  court  -house*  and  largely  the  exclusive 
management  of  schoolhouses.  and  upon  both  the  marks  of  masculinity  and  neglect  are 
plainly  visible. 

Educate  a  man  and  you  have  educated  one  person:  educate  a  mother  and  you  have 
educated  a  whole  family. 

Not  a  shadow  of  doubt  has  ever  dimmed  my  faith  in  the  final  wisdom  and  justice  of 
the  people  of  the  State,  and  I  look  with  confidence  to  an  early  day  when  they  will 
invest  in  the  training  of  white  women  at  least  as  liberally  as  they  do  in  the  training  of 
white  men,  colored  men,  and  colored  women. 

The  chief  factors  of  any  civilization  are  its  homes  and  its  primary  schools.  Homes 
and  primary  schools  are  made  by  women  rather  than  by  men. 

For  every  dollar  spent  by  the  government,  State  or  Federal,  and  by  the  philan- 
thropists in  the  training  of  men,  at  least  another  dollar  should  be  invested  in  the  work 
of  educating  womankind. 

Many  of  the  States  established  their  State  college  for  men  nearly  a  hundred  years 
ago,  and  after  a  century's  development  along  the  line  of  masculine  tastes  and  needs, 
those  in  authority  seem  to  think  that  if,  without  modifying  the  courses  of  study  in  the 
slightest,  they  decide  to  admit  women,  it  is  a  mark  of  great  generosity  and  progress. 

The  wife  and  mother  is  the  priestess  in  humanity's  temple  and  presides  at  the 
fountain  head  of  civilization. 

We  could  better  afford  to  have  five  illiterate  men  than  one  illiterate  mother. 

I  have  yet  to  find  the  ambitious  man  who  is  suffering  in  his  mind  because  he  is  not 
allowed  to  become  a  student  at  a  woman's  college. 

An  educational  qualification  for  matrimony  would  be  worth  more  to  our  citizenship 
than  an  educational  qualification  for  suffrage. 

A  Southern  woman  once  told  me  that  she  had  decided  to  use  her  money  to  aid  in  the 
education  of  boys  and  men — that  her  husband  was  a  man! 


CHARLES   DUNCAN    M'lVER.  337 

ILLITERACY. 

The  burden  of  our  illiteracy  formed  a  part  of  every  public  address 
which  he  made.  Some  of  his  epigrammatic  utterances  on  this  subject 
are  well  worthy  to  live : 

Ignorance  and  illiteracy  cost  more  than  education. 

North  Carolina's  two  ancient  enemies — illiteracy  and  hostility  to  taxation. 

There  is  no  comfortable  place  in  civilization  for  men  and  women  who  can  not  read 
and  write.  The  instances  to-day  of  extraordinary  successes  among  illiterate  people 
are  rarer  than  genius  itself. 

In  a  section  where  one-third  of  the  population  above  10  years  of  age  can  not  read 
and  write,  the  removal  of  that  handicap  is  the  very  first  public  question  with  which 
our  Christian  benevolence  and  statesmanship  must  deal. 

I  have  heard  people  talk  as  if  industrial  education  were  possible  for  illiterate  people. 
Just  as  well  talk  of  a  law  school  or  a  medical  college  for  illiterates. 

THE    TRAINING    OF    TEACHERS. 

Doctor  Mclver  held  that  the  teacher  is  the  most  useful  member  of 
our  society,  and  that  he  must  be  trained: 

The  school-teacher  is  our  most  important  public  official. 

The  teacher  is  the  seed  corn  of  civilization,  and  none  but  the  best  is  good  enough 
to  use. 

The  person  who  builds  citizens  and  shapes  the  character  and  thought  of  the  young 
is  worth  more  to  society  than  the  man  who  builds  houses  and  molds  iron. 

.Those  who  teach  the  young  are  civilization's  most  powerful  agents,  and  society 
everywhere  ought  to  set  apart  and  consecrate  to  its  greatest  work  its  bravest,  its  best, 
its  strongest  men  and  women. 

The  teachers  of  this  country  must  learn  to  become  tactful  mixers  with  men  and  active 
agitators  for  more  liberal  educational  investment. 

We  have  passed  away  from  the  time  when  the  old  woman,  being  asked  how  many 
children  she  had.  replied:  "Five — two  living,  two  dead,  and  one  teaching  school." 

We  are  laboring  under  the  delusion  that  we  can  save  money  by  employing  low-priced 
teachers.  North  Carolina  and  all  other  States  still  regard  a  carpenter  or  an  ordinary 
laborer  with  very  little  skill  as  deserving  better  annual  compensation  than  is  paid  to 
our  elementary  teachers  who  are  the  builders  and  sustainers  of  our  civilization. 

The  school-teacher  should  be  not  only  the  teacher  of  the  youth  of  his  community, 
but  also  the  most  influential  adviser  on  all  matters  of  legislation  that  pertain  to  schools 
and  the  rearing  of  children  into  useful  citizenship. 

It  is  the  business  of  teachers  to  hand  down  from  one  generation  to  the  next  the  best 
that  their  own  generation  can  do  and  know  and  be  and  dream.  They  are  the  seed  corn 
and  none  but  the  best  and  strongest  is  good  enough  to  be  used. 

Every  community  has  its  hero  physician,  its  hero  lawyer,  its  hero  banker  or  business 
man,  but  the  hero  school-teachers  are  dead! 

A  person  who  has  the  right  kind  of  education  will  want  other  people  to  have  it  too. 
This  is  the  spirit  of  the  true  teacher,  who,  in  his  heart,  must  be  a  genuine  phUan- 
thropist. 

We  must  not  only  do  our  duty  in  the  class  room,  but  let  us  use  our  influence  as 
citizens  to  pursuade  the  men  and  the  women  of  to-day  to  discharge  their  debt  to  the 
generation  that  has  preceded  them  by  the  most  liberal  provision  for  the  generation 
that  must  take  their  places. 

There  are  people  who  seem  to  think  that  a  little  child's  time  ^  worth  nothing,  and 
waste  it  by  putting  it  in  charge  of  a  teacher  without  skill  and  inspiration.  Six  or 
seven  years  of  a  child's  life  wasted  means  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  effective  manhood 
or  womanhood  wasted. 

A  weakling  can  not  train  boys  and  girls  into  great  men  and  women  whose  education 
has  economic  value.     We  must  have  masters  as  teachers. 


338  EDUCATION   REPORT,  1901. 

There  are  people  who  are  as  naturally  avaricious  in  regard  to  helping  others  sec  truth 
as  others  are  naturally  avaricious  in  a  pecuniary  way.  They  would,  if  possible,  get 
up  a  corner  in  knowledge  and  keep  it  from  the  rest  of  the  world  in  order  to  gain  power 
for  themselves. 

I  do  not  want  my  children  taught  geography  by  a  person  who  has  never  been  outside 
of  the  Congressional  district  in  which  she  is  teaching.  I  do  not  want  my  children  to 
be  taught  the  relation  between  capital  and  labor  by  a  man  or  a  woman  who  never 
expects  to  see  more  than  $150  or  §200  capital  for  a  year's  salary. 

Of  all  the  skilled  workers  in  the  world  the  teacher  is  probably  the  only  one  who  is 
ever  refused  the  privilege  of  selecting  the  tools  with  which  he  will  work  or  the  weapons 
.  of  his  own  warfare.'  I  have  seen  text-books  decided  upon  by  a  committee,  nut  a  mem- 
ber of  which  had  been  in  a  school  for  twenty  years,  and  the  committee's  only  influ- 
ential adviser  seemed  to  be  a  lawyer  who  was  paid  an  attorney's  fee  to  give  the  advice. 
Imagine,  if  you  can,  carpenters  allowing  brickmasons  to  select  their  tools,  or  fishermen 
allowing  field  hands  to  determine  for  them  the  character  of  their  iishing  tackle  or  the 
bait  that  shall  be  used! 

EDUCATIONAL    LEADERSHIP. 

Of  educational  leadership  he  said: 

Aggressive  educational  statesmanship  among  teachers  and  public  officials  is  the  need 
t>i  our  time,  and  every  Southern  .State  that  has  not  developed  such  leaders  will  <!<•  so 
within  the  next  five  or  ten  years. 

The  county  superintendent  should  be  a  man  who  can  win  the  confidence  of  the  intel- 
ligent, lead  the  ignorant  and  illiterate,  and  give  hope  and  inspiration  to  plodding  men 
of  mediocre  ability  and  position.  In  argument  on  general  questions,  he  should  be  able 
to  hold  his  own  with  the  strongest  professional  or  commercial  men  he  may  chance  to 
meet;  and  in  the  discussion  of  educational  questions  he  ought  to  be  more  than  a  match 
for  them.     He  ought  not  to  be  a  mere  examiner  of  teachers  or  a  gatherer  of  statistics. 

HIS   IDEAL   OF    A    COLLEGE. 

Doctor  Mclver's  ideal   for  a  great  and  useful   college  was  thus 

expressed: 

The  love  of  truth  for  truth's  sake;  the  belief  in  equality  before  the  law;  the  belief 
in  fair  play  and  the  willingness  to  applaud  an  honest  victor  in  every  contest,  whether 
on  the  athletic  field  or  in  the  class  room  or  in  social  life;  the  feeling  of  common  respon- 
sibility; the  habit  of  tolerance  toward  those  with  whom  one  does  not  entirely  agree; 
the  giving  up  of  small  rights  for  the  sake  of  greater  rights  that  are  essential;  the  recog- 
nition of  authority  and  the  dignified  voluntary  submission  to  it  even  when  the  reason 
lor  the  policy  adopted  by  the  authority  is  not  apparent;  the  spirit  of  overlooking  the 
blunders  of  others  and  of  helping  those  who  are  weak;  the  contempt  for  idlers  and 
shirkers;  the  love  of  one's  fellow-workers,  even  though  they  be  one's  rivals;  patience 
in  toil;  self-reliance;  faith  in  human  progress;  confidence  in  right:  and  belief  in  God — 
these  are  the  characteristics  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  great  and  useful  college. 

SOME  PERSONAL  PREFERENCES. 

Some  personal  preferences  he  phrased  thus: 

I'd  rather  be  a  what's-what  than  a  who's-who! 

I  am  not  a  prophet.  I  prefer  history  to  prophecy,  and  I  prefer  the  work  of  the 
present  as  a  preparation  for  the  future  to  either. 

When  a  man  is  on  the  right  road  it  is  not  of  great  importance  whether  he  be  at  one 
point  or  another.  The  direction  in  which  he  is  moving  and  the  rate  of  his  speed  are 
the  important  questions. 

I  would  rather  be  a  healthy  man  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  advancing  steadily 
and  with  the  upward  look  of  hope  and  faith  than  to  be  a  corpse  on  the  peak,  or  the 
blase  traveler  who  has  gone  over  the  entire  road  and  is  slowly  descending  while 
possessed  with  the  delusion  that  he  is  standing  still  on  the  summit. 


CHARLES   DUNCAN    M  IVER.  339 

BIOGRAPHICAL. 

Born  in  Moore  County,  X.  C,  September  27,  I860;  died  near  Hills- 
boro,  X.  C,  September  17,  1906.  Student  at  the  University  of  North 
Carolina  September,  1S77,  to  June,  1881.  Awarded  Greek  medal  at 
university;  won  honors  in  French  and  Latin;  graduated  with  B.  A. 
degree.  Taught  in  public  and  private  schools  of  Durham,  1S81-1SS4; 
cast  his  first  vote  at  Durham  in  May,  1SS2,  in  favor  of  a  local  tax  to 
establish  the  Durham  public  schools.  Taught  in  the  Winston  public 
schools,  1884-1886.  From  September,  1886,  to  June,  1889,  he  taught 
in  Peace  Institute,  Raleigh.  State  institute  conductor  and  chairman 
of  Xorth  Carolina  Teachers'  Assembly  Committee  on  Education  1889- 
1892.  President  of  the  State  Normal  and  Industrial  College  1S92- 
1906;  member  of  the  Southern  Education  Board  and  chairman  of  its 
campaign  committee  1901-1906;  member  of  the  National  Educational 
Association  and  of  the  National  Council  of  Education.  He  was  presi- 
dent of  the  Xorth  Carolina  Teachers'  Assembly,  1892,  and  of  the 
Southern  Educational  Association,  1905.  Married  Miss  Lula  V.  Mar- 
tin, of  Winston,  in  1885.  Held  the  honorary  degrees  of  Litt.  D.  and 
LL.  D.  from  University  of  Xorth  Carolina,  conferred  June,  1893,  and 
June,  1904. 


